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I’m feeling low. I’m tired, lethargic, sad and feeling a bit hopeless. I was really getting on top of it all back there. After seeing the doctor and starting taking setraline, going back to therapy and exercising I was feeling the best I’ve felt for years, then the backwards slips over Christmas as written about here. I’ve been trying to get a sense of momentum going again since then, nearly a month since I wrote that post, but I’ve carried on slipping and now feel back into a fairly bleak, hopeless condition. There really is nothing that brought me here, in many ways life has been picking up since Christmas and I should be feeling much more positive, but I don’t.

Time to head back to the doctor’s and talk about it all again, go back to my therapist and start from the beginning again, and again, and again, and again……that’s the hard part, working really hard for months trying to get better and only achieving some kind of hard fought stability, running to be still. It’s all I can do though. If anyone feels they want to say to me ‘snap out of it’ I’d like to say ‘go f*** yourself’ – I really do wish it was that easy, I’d have been snapping like a good ‘un years a go, I really don’t like feeling like this, honestly I don’t. I was enjoying starting to feel happy and content for weeks at a time, instead of struggling to get up, then struggling to get dressed and work, walking round with a feeling of dread all the time. Snap, snap, and tap my heals three times and still no joy.

So other than going to see all my professionals again and seeing what we can do, what else can I do? Not sure, off to MIND this afternoon and booked Dr appointment for Thursday so that’s that taken care of. Other than that I thought it might be useful to try and write about how I feel and sharing it with you all, even if it just achieves getting it out of my head a bit.

So how do I feel? I’m not swooning around with my hand to my head feeling oh so very miserable. It’s more of a low level sadness, a murky, dank place filled with a sense of dread. The day starts with the struggle to get up, lying there wanting to be up, but unable to move sometimes, just arguing with myself, pushing myself to get out of bed. This can take quite a while, currently mainly less than an hour though, my record in the past has been much longer, days sometimes. It is very hard to describe this battle to move, if you suffer from depression you’ll get it I think, if you don’t you might well just think I need to ‘man up’ or something. It’s a little more complicated than just getting up though. It can feel like I’m being held down, almost physically, I really want to get up but there’s something inside my head that won’t let me, so I’m struggling away getting more and more upset, feeling tired and drained until finally I make it. Sometimes I need to go back to sleep and hope I’m better when I wake up, other times I fool myself by thinking of something else and then suddenly making a move. Yes I can see the funny side of this as I type, it does seem a tad silly, but that can often be the start to my day.

Once I’m up the search for motivation can start. The old saying ‘my get up and go got up and went’ comes to mind. I can lose days just sitting around, pottering away, not really doing anything when I should be working. It is mainly looking for relief from that sense of dread, the feelings of hopelessness that wash over me. I became self employed to help with this, which mostly works. I can have duvet days and then work to catch up as I am prone to having my best hours in the evening so this flexibility really does help, as does being able to work in my pyjamas and have breaks when I want them. This way of working has been pretty successful for me so I’ve been able to not have to rely on benefits and roughly been able to manage my condition. It’s been a constant struggle but the best way of doing it for me.

It really is hard to describe the feelings of depression, all the cliches about black clouds, black dogs and the rest are pretty accurate. The feelings of hopelessness and dread that bubble up, the isolation you feel because you think people don’t want to be around your miserable face, the being on the verge of tears for long periods. It’s very draining to live like this, which makes it even harder to live a normal life. You expend so much energy doing simple things others don’t think about. The loss of so much time to self doubt, anxiety and lethargy is so wearing it creates a negative cycle that drags you down. It also takes much more energy to pull yourself back up, you are constantly wading through a fast running river. All the good things are upstream but you have to fight to get there, even having a little rest is tiring as any false move and there’s a slip and the river pulls you under. It can take a while to get any sort of grip on anything solid, you watch helplessly as those markers you worked so hard to get beyond rush past, usually not for the first time. Once you find a little stillness and can get back to your feet the only thing to do is start wading against the current again. I try to believe it will be easier to tread these familiar parts again. I’ve been along them before so my footing should be easier, the landscape around me I know so can find the better ways of moving quicker. I can quickly get back to where I fell. Two steps forward one step back indeed! Sometimes a 100 steps back. But there isn’t another way I will consider. I could just let the current take me to where it want’s, which really isn’t an option as I do want to be better. I could just set up camp on the side of the river here, it’s ok there’s food and water and maybe it’s a good compromise? I lived for many years like that, working jobs I don’t care for and getting by, keeping things bottled up and surviving – again this doesn’t feel like an option either anymore.

So this is where I am, struggling and sad but unwilling to stop fighting. I’ve got back up again and started pushing back through the river of my own depression. I don’t really have a destination in mind anymore, that life is set to be the wading. That’s fine, that’s me. I do have a fierce sense of self under all this self doubt, this self hatred. People that know me see this, it’s what has helped me survive over the years. I am generally happy with who I am, my life and love my home and my beautiful partner Janice. I treasure all this and it keeps me going. I know I’ll feel better again soon, slowly over time.

It really is the little things that get you. The skipping the morning stretches, fine one day then another reason, then the chocolate bars creep back, then cycling feels like such an effort, then the CBT work is missed. Then before you know it you’re fighting for breath being dragged along by the negative current. I’ve been getting pulled along faster and faster for the last couple of months. Really getting swamped by it all, no sense of control. Feeling overwhelmed by work I need to do but unable to find the energy to get stuck in, which feeds my negative view of myself. But I’ve started to get a very slight grip.

I stopped today. Stopped still and started breathing a little deeper. After a quick talk with Janice this morning I phoned the Dr. I’ve not seen her since way before Christmas, I couldn’t get an appointment at Christmas and was so stressed out about running out of meds I sorted my prescription then but should have gone back sooner, when the darkness started to creep back. Not to worry though, I will go back and talk to her, see what the way forward is from that angle. I also have a therapy appointment this afternoon so will talk through where I’m at with her. This generally helps me, not sure if it cures anything or not but I leave felling better. I also need to rebook my First Steps appointment I missed. I have had a cold which lost me a couple of days, especially after the fogged brain, medicated, snotty middle of the night accident of walking into a glass door. Minor cuts to hands and face so was very lucky. I think this in some weird way was what has helped me turn a corner. It made me stop and rest, to slow down everything and gather my strength.

I’ve been throwing myself at getting better, exercising, dieting, trying to get more work, doing stuff round the house, trying to get my body to do regular hours. This had worn me out, I have been physically run down as well as mentally. Then I got a bad head cold. I realised I needed to take better care of myself if the end result was walking straight into a door….so I’m slowly getting back to my feet, re-learning to be gentle on myself. I need to relax and just take it all at the correct pace. Not worry about the slips but reinforce the positives. After a few days of illness induced non exercise I’m going to have a gentle cycle and then have something nice for dinner before going out to MIND. This afternoon and evening I need to start a list of things that need doing, both work and personal and start getting them in order so I can chip away at them. It will feel less overwhelming if I know what needs doing. I’ll not feel better for a while yet, but I can at least start to feel in control again. To know what I need to do and gently head in the right direction.

So time to hit publish and get stuck into the day a little. I have set myself some small targets that are achievable. Mainly to not beat myself up, to have something nice for dinner and move on from there.